So, Ya Wanna Change the World, Do Ya?

This is the Farley Mowat.






She is a Pirate ship of sorts.

She represents an organization called Sea Shepherd and intends to enforce national whaling laws in place of the laxing actions of countries around the world. In her history, she has sunk eight whaling ships to the bottom of the ocean and is considered by several countries to be acting out of terrorist intentions.

She has a small army on board of fourty eight volunteers and was recently featured in National Geographic Adventure magazine. The article, which i read in the van back from Wyoming, blew my socks off. It speaks of a high seas chase in antarctica between the Farley Mowat and a Japanese whaling fleet, and let me tellya, the Mowat wasnt the one on the run.

the Mowat deploys non lethal tactics of "law enforcement," things such as steel cable mouring lines tossed overboard to entangle props of large ships, like this:
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and guys that stand on things like this:



The ship's got some outboard speakers that plays music when they "attack," songs like Flight of the Valkaries, which is pretty cool.

Heres a pic from one of the Mowat's Zodiacs, "outboard" fast little boat things, fore of the Nisshin Maru whale processing ship during one of the many attempts to intimidate and slow down the fleet.




Here you can see the Jolly Roger that the Mowat flys under.

Quote:

"Perhaps it is time once again to remind the Australian government of the crimes being committed by Japan:

1. The Japanese are whaling in violation of the International Whaling Commission's global moratorium on commercial whaling. The IWC scientific committee does not recognize this bogus research that the Japanese are using as an excuse.
2. The Japanese are killing whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.
3. The Japanese are killing whales unlawfully in the Australian Antarctic Territory.
4. The Japanese are targeting fin whales this year and humpback whales next year. These are endangered species, and thus, this is a violation of CITES, the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna.
5. The Japanese are in violation of IWC regulation 19(a) The IWC regulations in the Schedule to the Convention forbid the use of factory ships to process any protected stock: 19. (a) It is forbidden to use a factory ship or a land station for the purpose of treating any whales which are classified as Protection Stocks in paragraph 10. Paragraph 10(c) provides a definition of Protection Stocks and states that Protection Stocks are listed in the Tables of the Schedule. Table 1 lists all the baleen whales, including minke, fin, and humpback whales and states that all of them are Protection Stocks.
6. In addition, the IWC regulations specifically ban the use of factory ships to process any whales except minke whales: Paragraph 10(d) provides: “(d) Notwithstanding the other provisions of paragraph 10 there shall be a moratorium on the taking, killing or treating of whales, except minke whales, by factory ships or whale catchers attached to factory ships. This moratorium applies to sperm whales, killer whales and baleen whales, except minke whales.” Fin and humpback whales are both baleen whales and are subject to this moratorium."

Source:http://www.seashepherd.org/whales/blog/whales_blog_001.html

So. Heres a PDF link to the N. G. Adventure article that has changed me a little more, I hope it works: Read me!!


I whent to a prayer meeting at Justin's church this morning at five. afterwards i was talking to a man about some of the things i've been thinking about lately since the trip. Stuff like being a good steward of the planet and such, how I want to buy food that honors the world around me and stands for the fair treatment of animals and the rest of the people that live with me on the planet, and he responded strangely. I don't know if he misunderstood me or what, but he told me,"These things you're thinking about, you don't need to be thinking about right now. Give it ten years or so," or something like that. I'm not sure what he meant. He gave me his number to get a hold of him later on. I might, indeed, but something tells me that I'm not going to be the man that he thinks i should be.




So, whale slaughter. Hm. Have a plesent day.